11th September 1998
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, welcome to Longreach. I have been dishonestly referred to as a racist and other names just as dishonest and just as ineffective in stopping me from voicing the views of many Australians who have for so long gone unheard and unhelped.
The names are only political slurs and insults without substance meant to confuse and mask my simple nationalistic message of equality for all Australians and my patriotic desire for us to truly be One People under One Flag living and working together as One Nation.
Our freedom of speech in Australia had all but gone unless of course your view was approved as politically correct until perhaps in an almost nervous way, I rose to speak the thoughts of many of my fellow Australians.
I rattle the cage and rock the boat of the elites who feel their view of the past, present indeed the future, is all that matters.
My simple points over what some believe to be complex issues were only the commonsense you would hear from any ordinary Australian and no amount of slur, insult or physical threat will ever stop me from giving those ordinary Australians a right to an opinion and a right for that opinion to be heard.
We Australians are a young people and our nation relatively new when compared to others but our love of this land is as great as anyone's love of their place.
You cannot claim more attachment to a place because your ancestors were here first.
You cannot claim a greater sense of belonging because your relative was here before the relative of another.
You cannot claim to be more Australian than those who have lived here just as long as you have.
I speak of course of the Aborigines and their much publicised right to this land because their forefathers are said to go back tens of thousands of years.
Does an Aborigine who is the same age as I am and was born here as I was, have anymore feel for the land or cherish its beauty and ruggedness more than you and I do?
Would an Aborigine fight any harder to defend Australia than you or I would?
Does anyone think migrants who have become loyal Australian citizens have less claim or love for this country than someone of Aboriginal descent?
We Australians are a people of multi-racial origins but we must stop this division by race.
The political bleeding hearts and others who seek to line their pockets through greed will only destroy our nation and our people.
They will never make us one by dividing the land into two.
No amount of land or compensation can ever turn back the hands of time or change what has happened.
We are all sorry for past wrongs but no one group has a monopoly on heartache and despair.
We must not peddle guilt for the purpose of gaining compensation or benefits based on race.
In particular, this shameless grab for land is not about reconciliation, but in fact an exercise in remuneration.
We should sit down as a nation and talk through these issues not as Aboriginals and non-Aboriginals, but as Australians.
We should speak without hate and greed and guilt and not of the past, but with understanding of our need to be one people and the future we must forge together.
We should reflect on the words of Sir Paul Hasluck in October 1955 when Minister for Territories,
"The distinction I make is this. A social problem is one that concerns the way in which people live together in one society.
A racial problem is a problem which confronts two different races who live in two separate societies, even if those societies are side by side.
We do not want a society in Australia in which one group enjoy one set of privileges and another group enjoy another set of privileges".
Perhaps these wise words were meant for another purpose not my purpose here today. Nonetheless they are appropriate in the current climate.
Surely we must see the Aboriginal people are no better off despite approximately $30 billion in taxpayers money disappearing into the Aboriginal Industry in less than twenty years.
ATSIC and its associated bodies must be held accountable for its actions and I will continue to call for a Royal Commission into ATSIC and associated organisations.
We must remove from our laws and from our actions the instruments of division.
The Australian constitution allows the Federal Government to make special laws on the basis of race.
This power, perhaps well intended originally, has been abused by governments and has entrenched reverse discrimination and the misappropriation of taxpayers' funds.
If we are to truly have equality for all Australians and treat everyone equally, assistance must be on a needs basis.
We must rid ourselves of policies based on skin colour.
We must remove the power that allows governments to treat people differently by race and this will mean an amendment to remove the race power clause from section 51 of our Constitution.
Given the chance, Pauline Hanson's One Nation will initiate a referendum to amend this race based section of the Constitution.
This is not to say there aren't individual Aborigines and families who need special help but they are not on their own in this need and should have assistance assessed based on need not supplied by virtue of race.
Most Australians are not aware the Indigenous Land Corporation will have the financial ability to transfer the ownership of Australia's pastoral leases to Aborigines irrespective of Native Title.
By 2004 the Indigenous Land Fund will have received over $1.2 Billion in taxpayers' funds and will be self-perpetuating.
Every year $45 Million will be generated in interest from the Indigenous Land Fund.
Given the chance the Corporation could buy all the pastoral properties in Cape York in just one year.
This taxpayer created fund could take only about thirty years or so to buy all the Pastoral Leases in Queensland.
All this is in addition to the 15% of the Australian mainland already owned by Aborigines, and the Pastoral leases that will be taken through Howard's weak 10 Point Plan.
It is not justifiable for taxpayers to continue to place money in the Indigenous Land Fund and given the influence I would stop this act of race based policy.
In August 1997 the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs considered that,
"the new form of regional self-government coming into affect in 1999 for the Indigenous Inuit in Northern Canada offered a possible international model.
Indeed the process of creation of the new Inuit Territory of Nunavut has some similarities with developments in the Torres Strait region".
I highlighted this report in the House of Representatives but the government denied its existence and I was ridiculed by the Prime Minister who said I was, "verging on the deranged".
The Government did not however make similar comments about Sir Harry Gibbs concerns over the formation of Aboriginal States as reported this year by the Western Australian newspaper. Pauline Hanson's One Nation will oppose the creation of any land grant that could at all be construed as a race-based state or territory unless the matter is passed in referendum by the Australian people.
Australians living in cities particularly in the South-East corner of Australia may feel remote from the debate and ramifications of Native Title and may allow their paternalistic and sympathetic attitude toward the Aboriginal people to overshadow the effects of inequality and unfair nature of the Native Title Act.
Those Australians either overlook or are unaware that the lifestyle of many Australians depends on revenue obtained from mining and agriculture.
Native Title affects primary production activities by inhibiting the expansion of country towns and in some cases, cities because of commercial uncertainty.
We must rid ourselves of Native Title and just as laws are made by and for the people so can they be amended.
Having the will to make change is the first step.
It is clear there are many benefits available exclusively to Aboriginal people including cheap business and housing loans, access to extra educational allowances, and the ability to lodge Native Title claims yet there is no precise definition of Aboriginality.
Three factors considered in determining Aboriginality are heritage, community recognition or acceptance and self-identification as an Aborigine. Many cases are contested and sometimes finish up in court.
According to recent newspaper reports it is suggested there are 15,000 people in Tasmania who claim Aboriginality but well known activist Michael Mansell claims 9,000 of these people are not Aboriginal and merely claim to be so as to gain benefits.
The Aboriginal population is growing faster than the population of Australia generally.
Despite terrible infant mortality and a generally shorter life span, the Aboriginal population increased 33% from 1991-1996 while the rest of the population of Australia increased by only around 6%.
This increase appears to reflect the availability of various government benefits to Aboriginal people who are not subject to precise qualification as to need or actual Aboriginality.
Under One Nation policy the issue of Aboriginality would no longer exist as benefits by virtue of race would no longer exist.
Policies such as Abstudy and organisations such as ATSIC would be absorbed into existing agencies with all benefits based solely on individual need.
I believe this will not only save funds but make certain that funds reach those Aboriginal Australians who truly and desperately need help but currently suffer the consequences of mismanagement and what many Aboriginal Australians call the Aboriginal Mafia.
Let us all understand that acknowledging your origins should be a matter of pride. Where Aboriginality is concerned I should add spirituality to pride but we should not accept the proposition of financial gain by means of racial discrimination.
I say again, claiming Aboriginality should be a matter of pride, of spirituality, but not of financial advantage over other Australians.
Len Harris our spokesman on Native Title will now address the issue of John Howard and his sell-out of Pastoralists, Miners and non-Aboriginal Australians through the course of the Harradine deal, made for the purpose of simply avoiding a double dissolution.